At Medaille College, the profile of the student body has undergone a significant change.

SUNY Buffalo State is letting 50 more students than usual into the “Compass” program – designed for students who fall well below typical enrollment standards – a one-shot move to buoy enrollment and stave off cuts.

At Canisius College, more than 40 professors are considering retirement buyouts offered by the administration, designed to avoid layoffs in the 2014-15 fiscal year.

The system of higher education in Western New York is creaking under the weight of tremendous financial pressure.

The story varies by institution – all say they’re positioning themselves for the future, while some still claim fiscal health and enrollment growth.

But there’s no doubt that the long-held expectation of declining demographics in Western New York is finally taking a systemic toll, forcing hard conversations, new strategies and, increasingly, painful cuts.

One of the most visible examples is taking place between Hilbert College in Hamburg and St. Bonaventure University, just outside Olean. The two private, Catholic institutions are considering a merger – though less-comprehensive options are also on the table.

The reasoning behind the merger is that individual enrollments can’t support the administrative and programmatic breadth necessary for long-term viability, leaders from both colleges have said. Hilbert has about 1,000 students. Bona has about 2,300.

“Long term, this demographic is not going to radically change,” Hilbert President Cynthia Zane said. “Being in a partnership with at least 3,000 students is, in our view, the long-term way to thrive and be sustainable.”

In the context of for-profit businesses, Zane’s statement would be ho-hum. In the history-rich, identity-driven world of higher education, it’s a dramatic acknowledgment that things are changing. And fast.

Hilbert received a five-year, $2.5 million federal grant in 2007 to prepare for the projections. The college reorganized faculty and staff, installed new programs and set up a framework of support for its large population of poor and first-generation college students.

Hilbert has maintained enrollment, which Zane attributed to its subsequent competitiveness, but status quo these days is seen as short-term relief in the face of huge long-term odds.

There is a national context to the suffering. Many U.S. colleges have struggled since the recession amid public debate about the cost of postsecondary education.

College officials say the situation has created a customer who demands up-front proof about the value of education and who vigorously shops for bargains on aid packages and tuition discounts.

Meanwhile, credit downgrades for colleges across the United States have spiked, according to Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. S&P issued four downgrades in 2010 but issued 17, 16 and 19 in the following years.

In fact, S&P downgraded the entire higher educational industry to a “negative” outlook this year. The issues are more pronounced in the Northeast, analysts say. S&P removed the positive outlook from Niagara University’s BBB+ rating a year ago and changed it to stable – meaning a credit upgrade is less likely. In March, it changed the outlook on Medaille’s BB+ from stable to negative.

Adding additional stress, these newly empowered consumers are in dramatic decline in the traditional recruiting pools for all local colleges. New York state projects high school graduates will decrease by 16.5 percent statewide between 2008 and 2019.

The same study found that dynamic applies to Western New York. Rural Cattaraugus County is expected to lose 28 percent, for instance, while relatively developed Erie County is expected to decline 17.7 percent.

Concurrently, enrollment is slipping at many local colleges. Erie Community College trustees recently passed a budget that used $4 million of its fund balance after using $3.5 million in reserve funds last year, all in response to enrollment declines. ECC has now whittled its reserves by 40 percent in two years. Buffalo State’s total enrollment has declined every year since 2010, from 11,695 at that time to 10,665 in fall 2013.

That’s troubling for an institution that relies on tuition revenue and also receives state subsidy on a per-student basis.

In response, the college under interim President Howard Cohen began a strategic planning process this year that will include a renewed focus on attractive programs, a more aggressive attitude toward marketing and a refined vision of Buffalo State’s student body and enrollment standards.

“We’ve got to decide what kind of institution we want to be,” said Ted Schmidt, a professor and chairman of the Budget and Staff Allocation Committee of the Buffalo State College Senate. “We’ve got to have that formal conversation.”

During a recent meeting of the College Senate, Vice Chairman William White asked whether the college is on the right or wrong path.

Fifty percent of the assembled faculty voted yes.

Cohen, one of five finalists for the full-time presidency of the college, acknowledged the uncertainty at the Elmwood Avenue campus.

He said it’s partly about an unsettled leadership position (the last full-time president, Aaron Podolefsky, resigned in 2013 while undergoing treatment for cancer and later died) and partly a natural function of widespread concern in difficult times.

But he, like many college leaders interviewed by Business First, said there is a risk of overdramatizing the situation.

“This is not like the bottom’s falling out at Buffalo State,” Cohen said. “This is about being right-sized and stable and doing the right things to frame us for the future.”

The higher educational ecology in Western New York touches every institution – from the massive University at Buffalo to tiny Villa Maria College.

“Now, everything in that ecology is in extensive disruption,” Medaille College Richard Jurasek said. “We’re struggling for a new stasis.”

Medaille has seen changes in the student body in recent years. In the last four years, undergraduates from Buffalo increased from 18 percent to 51 percent.

Since 2007-08, Pell Grant eligible students jumped from 27 percent to 62 percent. The number of nonwhite freshmen has grown from 4 percent to 42 percent since 2005. And since 2007, average SAT scores dropped from 953 to 886.

Medaille officials say their honors program still enrolls many high-achieving students, but they acknowledge their down payment on a new market: poorer, less academically prepared students.

They point to national efforts encouraging that population to get a college degree, as well as local ones, such as Say Yes to Education Buffalo, which sent 130 students to Medaille in its inaugural class last year.

Medaille has enhanced its focus on retention while establishing programs relevant to growing segments of the economy. Instruction focuses on community-based learning, while online offerings are scheduled to increase from 12 to 24 over the next two years.

“We never sleep,” Jurasek said. “We don’t even nap. We’re making sure our programs are right and that we’re moving the maximum number of students toward graduation.”

Medaille recently closed its satellite Amherst campus, which offered graduate programs on nights and weekends, and is bringing those programs back to the city campus.

Some institutions say a marketing and program mix helped lift them above the struggles so far. D’Youville College enrollment is growing on the back of its health care programs and the college is investing about $26 million into three capital projects near the West Side campus.

The University at Buffalo reported that fall 2013 enrollment reached a record of 29,937 against the backdrop of a 17 percent increase in international students, to about 5,200.

But in a recent budget update, UB’s vice president for finance and administration, Laura Hubbard, called enrollments a “volatile environment, so we have to continue to pay attention to that.”

Trocaire College, like D’Youville, has watched its earlier investments in health care pay off as students flock to programs such as nursing that carry perceptions about strong employment opportunities. The college has cut costs and plans to offer new programs in attractive areas.

President Bassam Deeb spent eight years as vice president of Niagara County Community College before getting the Trocaire job. He said the South Buffalo college is well aware of its new role in the traditional marketplace.

“There’s more competition now than I’ve ever seen in this community,” he said.